Cloud computing is Internet-based computing in which shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, as happens analogously with an electricity grid. Applications, that is, different programs that can be downloaded to computers and mobile devices, increasingly are becoming widely available on the cloud, as are larger amounts of information and data that can be widely shared. For instance, Amazon.com Inc. of Seattle, Wash. hosts scientific data for free.
Despite this evolution taking place, cloud services are generally not configured for storing provenance, or information regarding to origin and history of a piece of data. Provenance is also often referred to as lineage and can be important in helping to debug application results, validate data sets, improve search results and meet regulatory compliance.